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Apple files plans for Oregon data center
The Apple Oregon data center is moving closer to reality. Apple has filed formal plans with the city of Prineville, and it looks like Apple will build a 500,000-square-foot facility. It's likely the data center will serve the Apple app stores and iCloud. The plan shows two buildings with more than 500,000 square feet of what are described as 'data halls,' The Bend Bulletin reported Wednesday. The plan doesn't say when Apple might start building. "They really didn't say how long they are looking at," Prineville senior planner Joshua Smith said. An Apple spokeswoman, Kristin Huguet, referred Wednesday to the company's early statements on the development, which forecast "hiring dozens of people and bringing hundreds of construction jobs to the area" but didn't set a construction schedule." Facebook also is building a similar facility in the central Oregon town. The two data centers will be neighbors across the street from the other. [via KTVZ and The Associated Press]
New construction at Apple's North Carolina data center poses for aerial photographs
Photos courtesy of Wired reveal that Apple's new "tactical" data center at its Maiden, North Carolina facility is well on its way to completion. Captured with the help of a decidedly low-tech airplane -- a 1949 Piper PA-11 Cub Special, if you must know -- the shots feature what appear to be the facade of the $1.9 million, 21,000 square-foot structure that was outed last month. The images also show glimpses of a second 20-megawatt photovoltaic array and what may be the foundations of the complex's planned 4.8-megawatt biofuel cell plant, which will convert biogas into electricity. With Apple's upcoming Reno project getting the rubber stamp of approval, it doesn't seem like the company will run out of construction projects any time soon. Click on through to the source link for the full set of pictures and analysis.
Apple's plan for Reno data center gets green light
Apple's gotten the thumbs-up for another data center, this one in the biggest little city in the world, Reno, Nevada. Unfortunately, the deal itself doesn't hold a lot of weight, but at least Apple's gotten another nod in the right direction. The Nevada Board of Economic Development put its support behind the ongoing deal, agreeing to bring in the data center, and provide Apple with up to $89 million in tax breaks. Now, that board doesn't actually oversee deals like that, so a lack of endorsement by this board doesn't mean the deal would have been dead in the water. Local governments have already approved most of the tax breaks that Apple needed from Reno. But there were some concerns on this board, and there was talk of maybe trying to stop the deal somehow. So a vote to endorse the deal is just good news for Apple, and means that there won't be any issues from higher up the chain. Someone on the board did promise to bring the deal back up next year, but Apple's data center is set to go live sometime in 2012, so it may be a moot point by then. [via Engadget]
Facebook releases its 2011 energy usage report, details your carbon footprint
More Facebook news, but this time we're back to the numbers instead of reporting on a new feature, improvement or integration. As part of its mission to swap the familiar blue for something of a greener tinge, Facebook released today its carbon footprint and overall energy usage figures for 2011. Turning bio-babble into easy visualizations, the company points out that for the whole year, an active user occupied roughly the same carbon footprint as one medium latte. Or, if you're a fan of the tipple, a couple of glasses of wine. Impressively, 23 percent of the social giant's energy usage came from clean and renewable sources, which puts it well on the way to its 2015 target of 25 percent or more. If you'd like more info and a complete breakdown of the stats, the full report is available at the source link below.
Daily Update for July 19, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple building new, smaller data center in North Carolina
We all know about Apple's mega data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The center, with its solar farm and fuel cells, has been a popular topic of discussion here on TUAW since the groundbreaking years ago. Now the Hickory Daily Record is reporting that Apple's building a smaller "tactical" data center on the Maiden site. The new center is tiny -- just 21,030 square feet -- compared to the monstrous 500,000 square foot facility next door. The 11-room facility is apparently not designed for permanent occupancy, as it has only one unisex bathroom. Even though the site currently has very tight security measures, the new building is equipped with "man trap" security doors requiring clearance after entering the first door but before being allowed to go into the main building space. It's surrounded by an 8-foot chain-link security fence as well. The building services chief for Catawba County, NC, Rick Frady, said that the building was described as a stand-alone metal building with a concrete pad. The US$1,885,129 structure is the second on the site; architectural diagrams show a third data center building planned for the site.
How Apple's North Carolina data center got built
This week GigaOM took an extensive look at North Carolina and its many data centers. The fourth and final installment in this series focuses on Apple's new data center in Maiden, North Carolina and covers some of the early negotiations between Catawba county officials and the Cupertino company. Interestingly enough, Apple almost walked away from Maiden when the Catawba County Economic Development group tried to get the company to build its data center in a small mill building. You can read more about this background discussion on GigaOM's website and catch all four articles in the series here.
Greenpeace boosts Apple's rating, but barely
Greenpeace recently released an environmental report on Apple and upgraded the company's score from an F to a D, says a report in Wired. Greenpeace pointed to Apple's commitment to use alternative power at its North Carolina and Oregon data centers as the reason for this small boost in score, but wanted additional details on how the Cupertino company was going to carry out its plans. Apple has said publicly that it expects to power 60 percent of its North Carolina data center and 100 percent of its Newark, California center with renewable energy. Its upcoming Oregon data center will be power by a combination of hydro, geothermal and wind energy. The environmental watchdog also listed several recommended steps Apple should take if it's serious about the environment. These steps include choosing a renewable-powered utility for its Oregon Data center and seeking alternatives to using the "dirty electricity" from Duke Energy. Instead of relying on coal-based power, Greenpeace encouraged Apple to "use its buying leverage with Duke Energy and other utilities to push for cleaner electricity options."
Road trip! Visiting Apple's North Carolina data center
Looking for an exciting geek adventure this summer? You may want to follow in the footsteps of GigaOM's Katie Fehrenbacher, who recently took a one-day road trip to visit the sites of some of the world's largest data centers. These facilities, all of which are located in a small area of North Carolina, include Apple's new Maiden data center as well as facilities belonging to Google and Facebook. Fehrenbacher started her trip in Maiden, NC, which she refers to as a "sleepy, and economically depressed, outpost." The town of 3,000 won't see a large number of permanent jobs from the work, since data centers are usually quite lean in terms of staff. Fehrenbacher did manage to wrangle up a lunch of "black-eyed peas, fried okra, and baked beans" at one of the few open businesses in town, Scottie's Bar-B-Que (sounds like Katie's a vegetarian). The Maiden data center is getting a 20-megawatt solar farm and 4.8 megawatts worth of biogas-fueled fuel cells to provide clean electricity at the facility; according to Fehrenbacher, the only sign of the solar farm at this time is a grid of hundreds of poles upon which the photovoltaic arrays will sit, and signs for Holder Construction (which is building the farm) and the Project Dolphin Solar Farm (the data center was known as Project Dolphin). You won't get to see much on your driving vacation of the North Carolina data centers. All of the locations are hidden behind massive fences and are well-guarded. But at least you can stop in at Scottie's and get some barbecue... If you're too busy to hop in the car, at least take a look at a 2012 satellite image of the plant on Google Maps.
Windows Server 2012 pares back to four versions, looks to give small businesses more bang for the buck
Microsoft has been devoting most of its OS update attention this year to Windows 8, not its suit-wearing Windows Server 2012 counterpart. Some of the mystery has been cleared up through word of a greatly simplified server OS lineup. Just four versions of Windows Server will sit in IT backrooms versus the whopping 12 from Server 2008 R2, with an emphasis on making the feature slope a little gentler. The biggest improvement is the near-identical feature set of Windows Server 2012 Standard compared to its Datacenter equivalent: the only advantage of Datacenter is the jump to unlimited virtual machines, giving smaller businesses a way to save some cash. Foundation and Essentials will cover the basics for these outfits if just 15 or 25 very real machines need to hop onboard. The base prices of $425 to $4,809 per copy for all but the OEM-only Foundation still make it doubtful that we'll be loading Server 2012 on a PC tucked into a closet at home, but it's evident between this and the streamlined Windows 8 selection that Microsoft wants to avoid the flood of versions that confused buyers during the Windows Vista and 7 days.
Don't worry, you're not the only one: Netflix is currently down, admins hard at work (Update: back up)
What to do on this Friday night? If your answer to that age old question was "Netflix," then you likely received a bit of a rude shock this evening upon discovery that the company's video streaming service is currently out-of-whack. If you're wondering why that is, it appears to be tied to some of Amazon's EC2 servers in Virginia losing power due to the bad weather there. As VentureBeat notes, it's a problem which is also affecting sites like Instagram and Pinterest at the moment. For its part, Netflix has acknowledged the issue via its Twitter account, to which it states, "We're aware that some members are experiencing issues streaming movies and TV shows. We're working to resolve the problem." So, there you have it. Now the only question that remains is whether you'll break out one of those red envelopes, fire up Hulu Plus or venture out to the theater to satiate your movie desires. Update: @Netflix just tweeted that everyone should be back up, or will be shortly. The Amazon AWS dashboard indicates it's recovering as of 3:13AM, so all should be ready for your tilt-shifted Saturday brunch pics and subsequent dream board updates. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Reno city council approves Apple tax break for data center
No big surprise here -- the Reno, NV city council has approved tax breaks for Apple's proposed data center and business / purchasing center in the city. The tax breaks are expected to produce a 79 percent reduction in Apple tax burden, but building the facilities should provide the northern Nevada city with a significant economic boost. Washoe County commissioners approved their part of the deal on Tuesday, giving Apple an 85 percent break on personal property taxes. The 350-acre data center still has a few hurdles to overcome, as the project must go through about a month-long approval process with the Nevada governor's economic development office. If all the approvals go smoothly, construction of the new Apple data center could begin as soon as August of 2012.
Apple looking to build data center in Reno
All of Apple's iCloud initiatives need data centers -- big ones -- and the company has announced plans to build a new facility near Sparks, Nevada, just a short toss of a poker chip east of Reno. That's not all Apple is planning to do in Northern Nevada. There are also plans to build a business and purchasing center in downtown Reno, part of a total US$1 billion investment over the next ten years. As with most big job-producing deals of this kind, Apple is hoping to get $89 million in tax breaks from the city, county, and state to sweeten the pot. It's estimated that the economic impact of the projects will be a jackpot for the region -- $343 million from the 41 full-time jobs and 200 contract employees at the data center, and another $103 million from the construction required for facilities. In addition, the local and state governments are going to collect about $16 million in tax revenue from Apple. The deal needs the approval of the local governments today in order to proceed, but it's expected that all the players will chip in with their agreement.
Apple pitches data center near Reno, gambles iCloud will pay off among other puns
Apple data centers are popping up like spring flowers: following its North Carolina, Oregon and California plans, it's now pitching a fourth data center in Sparks, Nevada, just outside of Reno. The enigmatically named Project Jonathan hub is expected to light up before the end of the year if it's given the green light. Not surprisingly, Apple is promising jobs for the area, although the company is choosing the location for a reason: it's hoping for tax breaks on top of the advantages that previously led it to funnel some of its money through Nevada. We'll have a better idea as to the fate of the data center when Apple argues for the project on June 27th, but it's reasonable to think Apple is eager to make the Sparks location a reality. The more capacity and reliability it can build into iCloud and iTunes, the better. [Image credit: Amy Meredith, Flickr]
iCloud down for many, iMessages not going through (update: back online!)
Something's afoot at Apple's massive North Carolina data center -- or perhaps just on the various pipes and tubes leading to it. We've received many reports of iCloud and iMessage problems and, looking online, plenty of other folks are issuing the same complaints. Seeing something amiss on your end? Add your experiences in comments below -- while you still can. Update: Luke wrote in to let us know that Apple has acknowledged the issue. "Normal service will be restored ASAP." Update 2: "All services are online." That's as of 4:06 ET. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Daily Update for May 24, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
North Carolina approves Apple's plans for 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility
Things are looking green around Apple's Maiden, North Carolina data center, and it's not just due to the fact that it's springtime. The North Carolina Utilities Commission has approved (PDF) Apple's plans to construct and operate a 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility at the data center, providing green power for at least a portion of the electricity needs of the huge location. As noted previously on TUAW, Apple will be using natural gas-powered fuel cells called Bloom Boxes to generate electricity and exhaust CO2 and water to the environment with no combustion byproducts. The natural gas will come from a local pipeline provider; that gas will be offset by purchases of biogas from another provider, keeping the power as green as possible. The installation will be the nation's biggest private fuel cell energy project. Apple already uses some of the Bloom Boxes at the Cupertino campus; manufacturer Bloom Energy is located in nearby Sunnyvale, CA. The approval of the fuel cell power plant at the Maiden facility follows a similar approval last week when Apple got the OK to build a 20-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility.
Apple breaks ground on second solar farm for North Carolina data center
Last February, Apple came clean about its efforts to clean up the environment, detailing intentions to make its Maiden, NC data facility a greener place. That site, already home to one solar farm, is now set to host a second 20 megawatt photovoltaic array spanning 100 acres, a one-two power punch that'll jointly generate 84 million kWh annually. Combined with the company's in-development biofuel cell plant, scheduled for opening later this year, that theoretic yield should hit the 124 million kWh mark -- an amount sufficient to power nearly 11,000 households -- providing 60 percent of the center's electric demands. Still, that's not enough to adequately keep operations afloat, so for that very necessary, leftover 40 percent, the house that Jobs built plans to purchase similar clean energy from outside local sources. When all is finally up and running smoothly, the southern facility will earn the distinction of "most environmentally sound data center ever built." Or, at least until another well-heeled competitor comes along to contest that title. Now that's a friendly competition we can get behind.
Intel's PCI-E 910-Series SSD reviewed: blazing fast, even under pressure
Intel's not one to mess around when it storms a new market, and its jump into enterprise-level PCI Express SSD seemed no exception. Now, a full review by Hot Hardware of its 400GB ($1,929) and 800GB ($3,859) 910-series confirms that while not as stupid-fast as some, the 2 GB/s read and 1 GB/s write speeds are still sublime. On top of that, throughput holds steady even when the device is besieged by thousands of IO demands. A lack of bootability and on-board RAID were complaints, but these SSDs are intended for datacenters, not your gaming PC. And for its target market, the lowish $4.82 price per GB and chart-topping 14 Petabyte max endurance are also endearing qualities. Given its history of SSD reliability, Intel is bound to draw a crowd of corporate admirers to its 910 series -- even though it's fashionably late to the boardroom.
Greenpeace activists protest Apple by blocking train tracks
Greenpeace activists tried to stop Apple's coal consumption at its source by blocking train tracks that Duke Energy uses to ship coal to Apple's Maiden, North Carolina data center. Activists targeted the Marshall Steam Station in Catawba county, according to a report in Charlotte's WCNC. Protestors locked themselves to the train tracks, posted a sign that read "Save Our Mountain Clean The Cloud" and branded train cars with Apple's logo. Greenpeace International IT analyst Casey Harrell said, "Apple should be more transparent about its coal problem, and take steps to start solving it, as other tech companies have." Police were called in to disband the protest and remove the signs. The protesters will be charged with trespassing.